Panthers push for reform despite Moylan's salary cap fix

Penrith officials will continue to attack second-tier salary cap restrictions even after fullback Matt Moylan was given a late reprieve to return to the NRL on Saturday.

Moylan is free to play against Canberra after gaining an exemption from the NRL salary cap auditor on Thursday, because of an injury to Wes Naiqama. Having suffered an ankle injury in last Sunday's match against Wests Tigers, Naiqama, who was named by coach Ivan Cleary on Tuesday, failed to complete training on Wednesday and was subsequently ruled out by the club's medical staff.

That gave Moylan, who was initially set to play for NSW Cup side Windsor on Saturday, a reprieve. But it is far from a long-term one - should Naiqama return in round 15, the Panthers may be forced to drop Moylan again. ''It's unfortunate that we've lost Wes for this week but we're very happy to have Matt back in the first-grade side,'' Panthers general manager of rugby league Phil Moss said. ''While Matt will line up for us this week, it does not mean the second-tier salary cap issue has been solved. We will just have to deal with it on a week-by-week basis at this stage.''

Under the second-tier salary cap restrictions, Penrith will still need to apply on a weekly basis to play Moylan, who is not part of the top 25 NRL squad. Longer-term changes to the salary cap will be discussed by the NRL's salary cap review committee next Wednesday.

The Moylan case, which has led to heavy criticism of the second-tier salary cap, is certain to form a significant part of those discussions.

With the latest development effectively a short-term solution to Penrith's issue with Moylan, Panthers executive general manager of rugby league Phil Gould maintained the second-tier cap needed to be scrapped - and quickly.

''It just doesn't work any more and they need to get rid of it,'' Gould said. ''From our understanding - despite the Matt Moylan situation last week, which was very unfortunate for Matt, very unfortunate for the club but I think even more unfortunate for the game - we received an email [on Wednesday] from the league saying the salary cap auditor Ian Schubert would be meeting with his salary cap committee maybe sometime next week, and they'll have a little bit of a powwow, and then they'll go to the CEOs, and that'll go to a CEO conference. I don't think he's going to be in any hurry to do this, which I find tragic.''

NRL's chief operating officer Jim Doyle conceded Naiqama's injury effectively meant a temporary fix to a wider issue. ''Theoretically, the problem has resolved itself, until hopefully we have a long-term solution to resolve these types of situations,'' Doyle said.